Bakongo Nkisi Nkondi Figure 48″ – DRC

Shipping Large and Heavy Items

Discover African Art understands the costly expenses associated with shipping large and heavy items. We take great pride in providing you the lowest cost shipping rates while getting your item to you in a safe and timely manner.

While most of our smaller items are easily shipped through FedEx and USPS, the larger items are braced and packed securely in either custom heavy duty double-walled corrugated cardboard boxes or wooden crates. We then use a freight service that drops off at your local freight terminal. We also offer home delivery with lift-gate service for an additional fee.

Depending on your personal needs, we will try our best to make the shipping and receiving of these large items a pleasant experience. We want our customers to know that we will never up-charge for these services and will always be as transparent as possible with the shipping process.

Provided are some rough estimates for shipping heavy items; which have been broken down into three shipping zones (West Coast, Midwest, East Coast). These prices are subject to change. These prices only reflect the item’s freight expenses – not the total cost of the shipment. Depending on the specific needs of the item (whether it is very delicate, highly valuable, etc.) the item may be recommended to be crated rather than boxed, which can increase the total of the item’s shipping costs. Please use the form below to contact us directly for shipping quotes on specific items.

Up to 150lbs

$180.00 - West Coast

$260.00 - Midwest

$340.00 - East Coast

151lbs to 300lbs

$320.00 - West Coast

$525.00 - Midwest

$695.00 - East Coast

* An additional fee of $100.00 for home delivery of item with lift gate service

Tribe Information

About the Bakongo People

“During the 13th century, the Kongo people were led by their king, Ne Kongo, to the vast area across three frontiers, where they settled. Their kingdom expanded rapidly and, by the end of the 16th century, it engulfed the Atlantic Coast of present-day Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Angola. In 1482, Portuguese sailors arrived at the royal court in Mbanza Congo and eventually converted the Kongo king to Christianity in 1491. By the end of the 16th century, the kingdom was weakened and its demise came with the death of the last Kongo king, Dom Antonio II, in 1957. Today, the Kongo people number three million.

Originally, the Kongo kingdom comprised a number of separate tribes – the Vili, the Yombe, the Beembe, the Bwende and the Woyo, among others – which were led by a king, the Ntotela, who was elected by a council of governers. The Ntotela controlled the nominations for official positions at court and in the provinces. The main economic resources of the empire were ivory, copper and the slave trade.”

Additional Information

About the Nkisi Nkondi Figure

This piece is a Nkisi Nkondi and it is a class of nkisi that take the form of wood sculptures to which hardware is added over the course of their use, and charged with “hunting” or prosecuting wrongdoers, cementing regional chiefs in maintaining public order. Three major varieties to emerge along the Loango coast in the mid-nineteenth century were Mangaaka, Mabyaala Mandembe (Mabialla), and Mavungu.